Finally Some Time To Play

Christmas was just a little over two weeks ago, but if seems so much longer ago. Our world has been picked up and shaken again with the events of the past week...record numbers of Covid related deaths and an assault on our nation's capital. We need some escapism, and I found some for myself yesterday finally getting to play with my first pro camera lens that my daughter and her family gave me for Christmas. It is a Lensbaby Velvet 56, which is designed, as they say on the Lensbaby site, to add "ethereal mood to any scene with tack-sharp detail layered underneath edge-to-edge velvety glow effect." What they don't say is that, because this lens requires the user to understand how to get sharp focus where he/she wants it (or not), there is a bit of a learning curve. You certainly can't just put this lens on your camera and start snapping away and get the results you want, unless you are already a pro, which I am definitely not. It is a lens that requires the user to control lighting and focus with no help from the camera at all. I took 96 images, out of which I got less than 10 that I thought were pretty good and only 2 or 3 that I was thrilled, or partially thrilled with. This is one of them. But I think this could well become one of my favorite lenses. I am pretty sure you will be seeing more created by this lens in future blogs. For now, though, I think this one gives a hint of spring and, hopefully, better times to come for all of us.